News you may have missed #697: US edition
March 19, 2012 1 Comment
By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
►►What happens when CIA couples divorce? One retired CIA senior paramilitary officer, who served for more than two decades and lives in Virginia, said he was told several years ago that the divorce rate for the agency’s operations division was astonishingly high. But unlike the Pentagon, which studies how often service members split up, and knows, for instance, that 29,456 of 798,921 military couples divorced last year, the CIA does not keep official tabs on its employees’ divorce rates.
►►Spies exchange tips in the cloud. While some US federal agencies shy away from cloud computing for fear of losing control over their data, the intelligence community and military increasingly are turning to networked services expressly to exert tighter security restraints, according to Jim Heath, Senior Science Adviser for the National Security Agency.
►►CIA Chief: We’ll spy on you through your dishwasher. More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them. Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an “Internet of things” —that is, wired devices— at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. “‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies”, Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft”.
intelNews.org 
News you may have missed #702
March 27, 2012 by Ian Allen 1 Comment
►►NSA chief denies domestic spying allegations. In a rare break from the NSA’s tradition of listening but not speaking, National Security Agency chief General Keith Alexander was grilled last week on the topic of eavesdropping on Americans in front of a House subcommittee. The questioning from Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Georgia) was prompted by Wired magazine’s cover story earlier this month on the NSA’s growing reach and capabilities. But author James Bamford (photo) and NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake insist that the NSA is quietly building America’s the largest spy center in Utah, as part of a secret domestic surveillance program codenamed STELLAR WIND.
►►NY police says it monitored Iran operatives taking photos. Speaking before the US House Homeland Security Committee, Michael Silber, director of New York Police Department Intelligence Analysis, said New York City Police have observed Iranian operatives photographing key transportation sites at least six times since September 11, 2001. He gave an example of six men on an East River sightseeing cruise in 2005, who paired off with maps and cell phones while taking photographs and videos of the bridges over the river. The NYPD determined each was on the payroll of Iranian government, one employed at Iran’s mission to the United Nations.
►►Major Canadian Cold War era mole hunt operation revealed. Newly released archival records show that even the cream of Canada’s foreign service was not immune from scrutiny in a top secret RCMP investigation known as Operation FEATHER BED. The probe, which stretched from the late 1950s into the 1970s, saw RCMP security branch investigators pore over the backgrounds of possible Communist sympathizers in the public service and political sphere —including a future Mountie spy chief. There is no evidence the highly confidential investigation ever identified a Soviet agent.
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 0 Major Canadian Cold War era mole hunt operation revealed, 0 NSA chief denies domestic spying allegations, 0 NY police says it monitored Iran operatives taking photos, Canada, Cold War, communism, espionage, history, Iran, James Bamford, Keith Alexander, Michael Silber, New York, New York Police Department, News, news you may have missed, NSA, Operation FEATHER BED, operation STELLAR WIND, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Terrorist Surveillance Program (STELLAR WIND), Thomas A. Drake, United States, US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, whistleblowing